The Tallies
by AwkwardDuckling
Summary: Amy awakens at an ungodly hour of the morning to find a poisoned Doctor counting madly. Two-shot. Based of of "One dark night, you will count the children that were on Gallifrey that day." Slight spoilers, nothing major.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **This idea came to me after the line "one dark night, you will count the children on Gallifrey that day" and yeah. Hella angst up ahead. I don't own Doctor Who, sadly. If I did there would be an unexplainable miracle in which EVERYONE LIVES.

Amy woke up at some god awful hour of the morning. She groaned when she saw the display on the clock. 3:00 AM. She rolled onto her back irritated at whatever had woken her up. No one who valued their life would wake her at this hour, and Rory's snoring was for once not the problem. Amy couldn't focus with that bloody scratching in the background. That must be what woke her up. She groaned into her pillow. Why was there _scratching _on the TARDIS? There weren't any mice, where there?

Amy had _not _signed up for mice.

She sighed. There was no going back to sleep now, not with that scribbling. Who- _What_ever was making that noise was about to get some righteous ginger fury in it's (their?) face. She disentangled herself from Rory and flopped out of bed. Amy winced at the cold floors. They needed a rug, something red that would match the new-

She was getting off topic.

She needed to check on the Doctor anyway. After accidently landing on 'Arachneruta', a purple planet inhabited by 'friendly' aliens, the trio went to see the glowing shrine. They didn't know the Arachnerutans saw certain articles of clothing (read: bowties) as a personal offense to the king (According to the doctor, that story involved a runaway coyote, a glittery lasso, and green jelly).

That eventually led to the Doctor being stung with one of the Arachnerutans' poisonous quills. The symptoms included: madness, death, and even more death. Because of his

Superior Time Lord Physiology™, the 'death and even more death' part was excluded. Annoyingly enough for everyone involved, the Doctor would still have to go through the stark-mad phase.

Last she checked he had been questioning his attraction for girls named after nature.

Amy realized with a jolt that, one, the scratching had gotten louder, and two, the previously rambling Doctor was not to be heard. Amy, the brilliant girl that she was, put two and two together.

Foaming at the mouth or not, the Doctor was going to have 180 centimeters of a tired, angry, Scot on his hands. Amy hoped he had a God to pray to.

She stormed out of her bedroom, armed with a pillow and following the erratic scratching. Her feet were cold, her head hurt, and she was fully ready to smack some sense into a certain someone. The TARDIS was huge, and while she walked through the halls she rehearsed her grand entrance.

A classic "WHAT THE FUCKING HELL DO YOU CALL THIS?" would do nicely.

Amy finally reached the source. A door at the end of the hall was pulled to, and she could she a sliver of light peeking out. She stormed up and stopped in front of the door. Taking in a deep breath, she slammed the door open.

"WHAT THE FUCKING HELL DO YOU CALL THIS?" she yelled at the Doctor, who was just standing in front of a chalk board, making quick tallies with a stylus. He didn't bat an eye.

"Hello?" Amy said, walking up next to him. "Anyone in there?" The Doctor still didn't acknowledge her, his eyes were glazed over and unblinking as he scratched out the marks quick and methodically. He was swaying ever so slightly, a clear sign of his exhaustion, and his bite looked painfully swollen. There were tear tracks on his face and his eyes were red-rimmed. Amy could see nine-hundred years of pain and sorrow in his eyes, now more than ever.

That scared her more than any alien.

"Doctor?" she said, this time with the soft voice she used on children and the elderly. It surprised her that she didn't know which the Doctor was. "Are, uh, are you okay?"

"Two billion eight hundred sixty-nine million nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred eighty-seven."

"What?" Amy said, taken aback. That was…a number. Which didn't answer her question at all. "What does…_that _have to do with anything?"

"I'm forgetting something, someone, some people." The Doctor said hurriedly. "Some are missing. There are at least- _were _at least thirt…teen…more" The Doctor trailed off, his voice getting so weak at the end that it was barely a whisper. His eyes were filling with tears now, and he fell to the floor.

"Doctor!" Amy yelped, surprised at his sudden drop. She knelt down next to him, putting her hand on his non-gravely injured shoulder. "What are you doing? What's with the tallies?"

"Two-point-eighty-seven," He said, his voice shaking. "_billion._" He leaned into her touch, seeking her comfort. "I don't- I didn't- I-" He started crying then, too hard to continue his thought. _Not that he would have made much sense any way,_ Amy thought. Was counting some weird Time Lord thing?

"Shh…" Amy said, awkwardly comforting the practically immortal alien who has saved the world repeatedly. _Who would've thought?_ "It's…okay. I know you didn't." She tried to give him the best reassurance she could manage, what with her little understanding of the subject.

"They didn't do anything." He said, raising his voice "THEY DIDN'T DESERVE THIS!" the Doctor yelled standing up. He shakily rose and wobbled over to the board which had more white than green. He drew thirteen tallies and then promptly collapsed.

Amy ran over to the Doctor, turning him over and feeling for a pulse. She let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding when she felt his odd double-time pulse. He had probably passed out from exhaustion.

Amy looked around at the tiny white ticks on the board, then back at the fast asleep doctor.

"You've got some serious explaining to do."

**A/N:** I am so sorry for not updating my fic, The Twelfth Branch, in forever. School's been a pain in the ass, and I honestly have no idea where I want to go with it. I think the best thing to do is to cure my writer's block with hardcore angst. You've been warned.

Expect the next chapter by the 4th, at the latest.

Later bitches


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Here you go! As promised, I'm actually updating. Heh heh…

I don't own Doctor Who yet

Amy was sitting in the control room, chatting with Rory about that rug, when the Doctor walked in, looking fairly disgruntled. He would, seeing as he had slept on the floor last night. Speaking of which, _how_ exactly did he even get on the floor? Last he remembered, he had been explaining his amazing poison-resistance powers to the Ponds when…oh. It would be just his luck to not remember his madness. The best ideas come from madness, for example did-

"-you know that the last Great Queen of Una Cagna II was insane for the last four years of her rule?" The Doctor said, finishing his thought aloud. "Those were the best years of her reign, actually, and she stopped countless armies from invading!" He then noticed the Ponds giving him odd looks.

"What? Do I have something on my face?" He ran a hand over his face, just in case.

"Doctor, you have quite a bit of explaining to do." Amy said, "What _happened_ last night?"

"That, my dear Pond, is exactly what I want to know." The Doctor said, looking at her. He couldn't tell if she was worried or angry. Both ideas scared him a bit.

Amy looked taken aback. "What do you mean by that?" She said, raising her voice. "Did you forget about your midnight arithmetic?"

"That's exactly what I did. You see, even with my amazing memory, since the poison was designed to alder the brain, that's exactly what it did, only because my memory is stronger—it ought to be, after one thousand years—it affected me on a smaller scale. To summarize: I don't remember a thing about last night!" He finished gleefully, looking at the couple for any hint of comprehension.

"S-so, you're telling me," Rory said, speaking for the first time since the Doctor woke up, "You have short-term memory loss, and you don't remember anything about—say, Susan, or the counting?"

"What's this about counting?" He asked, completely avoiding the Susan problem. "Did I accidentally disprove string theory in front of the President _again_?"

"_Again?"_ and "No, you numbskull," Amy and Rory started, cutting each other off. Amy shot Rory a look and finished. "You were tallying on a chalkboard at—let me emphasize—_three AM_, raving about children and how 'they didn't deserve it' and such."

The Doctor considerable paled and his happy demeanor melted away. Amy almost felt bad. Almost.

"Show me." He said quietly, and Amy grabbed his arm and led him to the room she had found him in. Crates labeled in High-Gallifreyan were in one corner, in others were high-school textbooks dating back to the sixties. The Doctor looked shocked to be in this room, like he didn't even know it existed. _Maybe he didn't,_ Amy thought.

"Where… why are we…" The Doctor started, until he saw the chalkboard. 2.87 billion tallies. "_Oh."_ He looked like he had been punched in the gut.

"You woke me up early, you owe me an explanation." She demanded, giving no regard to the Doctor's obvious discomfort. "Well?"

"I-uh…" the Doctor started, still transfixed with the room. He was reaching towards a physics textbook, but holding back like it would burn him if he touched it. "This is—_was_—deleted from the TARDIS. At least I thought…" He couldn't seem to form a sentence, and Amy reveled in making her Doctor speechless.

"Whose room was this, Doctor?" Amy quietly inquired. He finally opened the book, and he looked at the publishing date.

"1963…" he trailed off, his voice barely above a whisper. He swallowed thickly and delicately put the book down, trying to leave the room exactly as he found it. He looked around again, drinking in the room.

"1963? Like what it says on the TARDIS?" Rory asked. They both jumped, they hadn't noticed him come in, but he had brought tea.

"Yes…right." the Doctor said absently, he probably hadn't even heard the question. Typical.

"Doctor, was this- did you have kids who lived here?" Amy asked, taking note of the school books. They were old, but they looked similar to hers when she was…fifteen?

"It appears," the Doctor said, blowing off her question as per usual. "In my maddened state I counted the…the children…" He cleared his throat and mumbled something unintelligible.

"Sorry, what?" said Rory, reminding them of his presence. He handed the Doctor a cup of tea, which he accepted without a word.

The Doctor inhaled deeply. "The children on Gallifrey, Ponds, that's what I was counting. Because-you see, unlike you _humans,_ I remember." He said all of this in one breath, almost too quick for them to hear.

"R-remember? What do you mean by…?" The Doctor cut Rory off.

"I remember their names, every last one. I remember the children who died because of _me_! Some of them weren't even 20! They were young, and innocent, and they were living in peace, until I," He slammed his fist on one of the crates, rattling the teacups. "killed them," he finished, losing all of his strength and falling to the floor.

"2.87 billion children are dead," He looked up at them, and his eyes were _so _old and full of sorrow. "because of me."

Amy and Rory stared at him, slack-jawed. "_Oh_." The breathed simultaneously. They couldn't imagine remembering the faces, names, _lives_ like that. It must be torture.

The Doctor looked up in surprise when he felt two bodies pressed next to him. Amy and Rory sat on either side of him. Amy leaned her head on his shoulder, and Rory put his hand on his other.

"It's okay, Raggedy Man." Amy said softly. "You saved the universe, and so many children since."

The Doctor was shocked at their comfort, so they sat there in comfortable silence. A Roman Centurion, The girl who waited, and an eleven thousand year-old alien, knowing they wouldn't rather be anywhere else.

**A/N:** Lazy ending, I know. I think I got what I wanted though. That was Susan's room, and I think I _might_ add a bonus chapter about the Doctor's crazy ranting. Just a little happy to get over this shitstorm.

Tell me what you think in the Reviews. Yay or Nay?

Later Bitches


End file.
